Adobe Converts Entire Type Library Into OpenType

Tuesday, April 30, 2002

Press release from the issuing company

First of Three Sets Released
InDesign Users to Benefit from Rich Typographic Capabilities
SAN JOSE, Calif.- April 29, 2002----Adobe Systems Incorporated, the leader in network publishing, today announced that more than 650 converted Adobe Type Library (ATL) fonts are now available in OpenType format. The converted fonts will provide users with improved cross-platform document portability, simpler font management, and enhanced glyph coverage. Today's release is the first set of fonts in a series of three; two additional sets will be released separately in the third and fourth calendar quarters of this year.
"By converting our type library, Adobe remains at the forefront of providing leading type solutions," said Susan Altman Prescott vice president of cross-media publishing at Adobe. "Now our customers can use OpenType to take typography to the next level. The expanded multi-lingual character sets and advanced typographic glyphs are a perfect complement to InDesign 2.0 and network publishing."
With Adobe InDesign 2.0 software's expanded support for OpenType, creative professionals can now easily integrate a full range of advanced typographic features into their documents by accessing specific OpenType glyphs through a new OpenType flyout menu on the InDesign character palette. InDesign allows users to select and insert any alternate glyph of an OpenType font using the Insert Glyph palette.
"With the combination of InDesign and OpenType, I can really push the creative boundaries," said David Bergsland, founder, Bergsland Design. "Right now the cross-platform font issues are killers and OpenType solves those problems."
Developed by Adobe and Microsoft Corporation, OpenType is a cross-platform font format that can include an expanded character set for expanded linguistic support and advanced typographic capabilities. The first set of OpenType fonts includes the standard range of Latin characters used throughout the western world, and several international characters, including the euro currency (EUR), "estimated," and litre symbols. Future converted fonts will include merged character sets, so additional glyphs, such as oldstyle figures, small capitals, and swashes, will be contained in one font file.
Adobe OpenType fonts can be installed and used alongside PostScript Type 1 and TrueType fonts, printed to most output devices, and embedded in PDF files. OpenType fonts are natively supported on Windows 2000, Windows XP and Mac OS X, and are compatible with other operating systems via ATM Light, a free system software component from Adobe.
Based on the international encoding standard Unicode, OpenType also supports network publishing by allowing the use of advanced typographic glyphs, while retaining a connection to the base character values when importing, exporting or searching text in documents.
Pricing and Availability
The first set of OpenType fonts from the Adobe Type Library are available immediately to customers in North America through the Adobe Store at http://www.adobe.com/type. Regular pricing varies, depending on the number of fonts in the family, ranging from US $29 to US $299. A special introductory price is available upon the release of each set of converted fonts ranging from US $19 to US $150. Discount pricing for the first set of converted fonts is available now through July 31,2002. Individual fonts are also available for purchase.
The second and third releases of the converted ATL will be released at http://www.adobe.com/type in the third and fourth calendar quarters of this year. For a complete list of all available OpenType fonts, please visit: http://www.adobe.com/type/browser/C/C_60.html. PostScript Type 1 versions of most converted fonts will still be available through the Adobe web site.